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ANDREW JACKSON 



AN ADDRESS 



Delivered on the Plains of Chalmette, 

New Orleans, La., on 

January 8, 1915 



AT THE 



Centennial Celebration 



OF THE 



Battle of New Orleans 



Held Under the Auspices of the Louisiana 
Historical Society 



-BY- 



SAMUEL M. WILSON 



OF 



Lexington, Kentucky 



COMPUIMENTS OF 

SAMUEL M. WILSON 

TRUST COMPANY BUILDING 
LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY. 




GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON 



Miniature Portrait on Ivory, by George Augustus 
Baker, N. A. 



ANDREW JACKSON 



AN ADDRESS 



Samuel M. Wilson 



Lexington, Kentucky 



PRESS 

Westerfield-Bonte Co. 
louisville. ky. 

Gift 



ANDREW JACKSON. 



Mr. Chairman, United Daughters and Sons of the Revo- 
lution and of the War of 1812, Veterans and Descend- 
ants of Veterans of all our Wars, Venerable Sur- 
vivors of the Washington Artillery, Members of the 
Louisiana Historical Society, Citizens of Neiv Or- 
leans and Guests of tJiis Occasion, Ladies and Gen- 
tlemen: 

From the time of the so-called Spanish Conspiracy, 
which had for its central object the maintenance of un- 
fettered intercourse between the Ohio and Mississippi 
Valleys and their navigable water-ways, and which ro- 
mantic plot cast both a glamour and a gloom over the 
early history of Kentucky, down to this good day, the 
people of that proud commonwealth have ever gazed 
with wistful and longing eyes down the long-winding 
course of the Mississippi to this Imperial Gateway of the 
Republic, magnificent New Orleans, the zenith city of the 
Gulf. 

To a Kentucldan, no higher compliment, surely, could 
be paid than to be given an opportunity, on this memor- 
able anniversary, and on this historic field, within sight 
of the majestic Father of Waters, and under the shadow 
of this splendid monument, to speak in commemoration 
of the mighty commander and the valiant forces who so 
successfully contested this ground with their British foes 
a century ago. One and all, I hasten to thank you for tlie 
high privilege which is mine at this hour. 



In spite of the hasty and undeserved reflection, cast 
at the time npon a portion of the Kentucky troops, who 
took part in that decisive conflict, the world has come to 
know and acknowledge that the Kentucky Volunteers on 
this field were no less fearless, steadfast and heroic than 
their comrades from Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisi- 
ana, to say nothing of the hardy sea-faring soldiers of for- 
tune under Lafitte, the smuggler Sea-King of Barataria. 
No time, therefore, need be spent in vindicating the 
"Hunters of Kentucky" from the charge of ''inglorious 
flight," which, in the first flush of inflamed passion, with 
an incomplete knowledge of the facts and under a griev- 
ous misapprehension, was flung at them by tlie Command- 
iTXg General, in his first report of the battle. To the en- 
during credit of the lion-hearted and magnanimous chief- 
tain, be it said, that, in time, he himself was made to re- 
alize and openly confess the grave error and injustice 
which had been done. ''This," says Colonel Colyar, "is 
about the only thing General" Jackson ever took back. ' ' 
For this honorable amends, you will permit me, here and 
now, to record my unfeigned gratification. It is gratifying 
not to me alone but to all who prize the good name of my 
native State, and the reputation for grit and courage 
earned by her valiant sons on a thousand battlefields. 
Amends any less complete, whole-hearted and honorable 
than were finally made by General Jackson, could hardly 
have been pleasing to the compatriots of Clay, Shelby, 
Johnson and Adair. 

And yet, aware as I am of a certain trepidation in- 
spired by this large and distinguished audience, by the 



sacred soil on which we are gathered and the immortal 
memories which throng about ns, I can better understand 
and make allowances for the symptoms of panic, into 
which the raw recruits from Kentucky were betrayed, 
as they stood at bay, in a strange and almost defenseless 
position, on yonder side of the Great River, and grimly 
faced the onset, in awe-inspiring numbers, of seasoned 
British veterans, fresh from the ensanguined fields of 
war-torn Europe. 

It would ill become me, on this occasion and within 
the brief time-limit at my disposal, to attempt a full- 
length, life-size portrait of Andrew^ Jackson, or a chron- 
ological account of his career. The life and achievements 
of a man, whose life was so full of achievements, and so 
pervasive and potent in its influence, can not even super- 
ficially be compassed within the space of half an hour, 
and thankless, indeed, would be the task should I essay 
to perform it. Born in the Waxhaw District, on the 
border of the Carolinas, on the 15th day of March, 1767, 
and dying at his historic home, the ''Hermitage," near 
the city of Nashville, on the 8tli of June, 1845, there was 
comprehended within the seventy-eight years, which filled 
the gap between these dates, more of human endeavor, 
more of human interest and more of human accomplish- 
ment than is commonly vouchsafed to the lot of mortal 
man and more, by far, than could be condensed into a 
talk suited to this place and occasion. 

I may take time, however, to remind you that he was 
the first representative in Congress from Tennessee, upon 
its admission into the Union on June 1, 1796, and it 





was during liis short term of service in Congress, at this 
time, that he formed the acquaintance and friendship of 
Edward Livingston, one of the most accomplished men 
of his time, then a Congressman from New York, and 
afterwards a leading public citizen of your own State of 
Louisiana. This attachment was ardent and life-long, 
and remained unbroken for a period of fifty years. I take 
time to say further that, in my opinion, there was no 
man in America, who, during General Jackson's public 
career, exerted a more important or more beneficent in- 
fluence upon his mind and upon his public and private 
life, than did this distinguished statesman and adopted 
but devoted son of Louisiana. 

While high honors in the civil service of his State 
and of the Nation came to him with surprising frequency, 
often from unexpected sources and nearly always un- 
sought, he seems, in the early years of his maidiood, to 
have put comparatively little store by these honors. His 
predominant tastes and talents were unmistakably mili- 
tary, yet, until the outbreak of the War of 1S12, there 
was no real outlet for Jackson's military ardor, no real 
opportunity for his military genius to assert itself. So 
inconspicuous, apparently, had become his simj^le life, in 
the primitive wilds of Tennessee, that the statement must 
pass unchallenged that at the age of forty-five he had 
commenced no career. The outbreak of the second war 
with England, however, furnished the long-deferred op- 
portunity and offered him an arena upon which to make 
a brilliant and effective display of his superior gifts as 
a military officer. 



Hardly had the declaration of war been made, on the 
18th of June, 1812, before Jackson volunteered his serv- 
ices to the National Government and offered to raise a 
force of 2,500 Tennesseeans, to be placed at the imme- 
diate disposal of the Department of War. His prompt 
and patriotic offer was eagerly accepted and he and his 
men were ordered to move toward New Orleans. No 
sooner said than done. But, on the arrival of Jackson 
and his hardy volunteers at Natchez, their appointed 
rendezvous on the Mississippi, the Government concluded 
that there would be little or no need of American troops 
for either defense or conquest, in this vicinity, and the 
order was recalled. One can better imagine than de- 
scribe the bitter disappointment suffered by J ackson and 
his followers, in consequence of this change of plan. Yet, 
despite the fact that he was forced to lead his men back 
to their Tennessee homes, his conduct upon this fruitless 
campaign was such as to win the lasting attachment and 
regard of every single one of his comrades-in-arms. 

Fortunately for his future, however, it was not long 
before the need of the South for XJi'otection, not only 
against the British red-coats, but also of stern, repres- 
sive measures against the dreaded "Bed Sticks" of Ala- 
bama, Georgia and the Mississippi Territory, became 
plainly apparent. The massacre at Fort Mims, at the 
junction of the Alabama and Tombigbee Rivers, in the 
late summer of 1813, when only five or six of the 553 per- 
sons in the Fort escaped slaughter, furnished the long- 
coveted occasion for an exhibition of Jackson's extra- 
ordinary capacity and vigor as a victorious commander 



8 

in the field. Rallying a large force, he swept through 
the country, infested by the hostile Creeks, with a vigor 
and velocity which defy description. This Creek cam- 
paign lasted only seven months and, considered merely 
as an Indian War, it was not of transcendent importance, 
but, nevertheless, it stamped Jackson as a pre-eminent 
soldier, it marked the beginning of his fame and popu- 
larity, and, from it, date his subsequent prestige and 
power. His crushing defeat of the Creeks at Tohopeka 
or the Horse Shoe Bend has been called a "tactical mas- 
ter-piece" and the outcome of this desperate battle was 
second in importance only to the overthrow of Paken- 
liam's army here at New Orleans. "A¥ithin a few days," 
he observed to his brave array of citizen soldiers, at the 
close of the war, "you have annihilated the power of a 
nation, that for twenty years has been the disturber of 
your peace." 

In the month of May, 1814, he was appointed a Major 
General in the army of the United States to succeed Wil- 
liam Henry Harrison, wdio had resigned, shortly after his 
decisive victory at the Thames, and w^as given command 
of the Seventh Military District, constituting the Depart- 
ment of the South. In August and September, 1814, he 
established his headquarters at Mobile, in what was then 
known as West Florida. He naturally wanted to attack 
the enemy wherever he might find him, and fiercely re- 
sented the fact that Spain, nominally a neutral, and at 
that time the sovereign of Florida, should allow Eng- 
land to use Florida, or any of its ports, as a base of opera- 
tions. Hence, in Jackson's view. Mobile must be held, 



9 

and Pensacola, captured or destroyed. To perceive how 
effectually this was done, one needs but turn to the thrill- 
ing story of Jackson's first Florida campaign. 

Still adhering to his aggressive programme, with sys- 
tematic and relentless perseverance, Jackson, on the 2d 
of December, reached New Orleans, where he instinctively 
expected the next blow to fall. Everything in New Or- 
leans was apparently in consternation and chaos. There 
were no arms or supplies, and no adequate preparations 
for defense had been begun, much less completed. His 
old friend, Edward Livingston, a leader of the New 
Orleans bar, whose allegiance had been transferred 
from his native State of New York to the new 
commonwealth of Louisiana, was, in this emergency, 
of invaluable aid to him. But these able and pa- 
triotic Americans were not the only ones who, under the 
pressure of the grave crisis, demonstrated their loyalty 
and zeal in the cause of America. Of the men able to 
bear arms in New^ Orleans in 1814 and 1815, says a recent 
historian of your State, there were only about three hun- 
dred of Anglo-Saxon race, out of a total population of 
about eighteen thousand souls. 

I should consider myself remiss if I let the oppor- 
tunity pass without paying tribute to the admirable and 
exemplary behavior of the Louisianians of French origin 
who, at this supreme crisis, rallied to the defense of the 
American colors. It is but simple justice to say that these 
men were every whit as patriotic and as loyal to the 
Union as were the men of Tennessee and Kentucky. 



10 

Jackson's able chief of engineers, Latonr, lias de- 
scribed for us, in vivid and impressive terms, his inex- 
haustible and resistless energy, and its wholesome effect 
upon all who came within the circle of his influence. The 
energy manifested by General Jackson, says Latour, 
'' spread, as it were, by contagion, and communicated it- 
self to the whole army. There v>"as nothing which those 
who composed it did not feel themselves capable of per- 
forming, if he ordered it to be done. It was enough if 
he expressed a wish or threw out the slightest intimation 
and immediately a crowd of volunteers offered them- 
selves to carry his views into execution. ' ' Such was the 
man, imperious, impetuous, masterful, and passionate, 
the very incarnation of the buoyant, aggressive and in- 
domitable spirit of the early West. 

The most important of the preliminary engagements, 
which foreshadowed the decisive action of the 8th of Jan- 
uary, was the battle of Villere's plantation, which oc- 
curred on the night of December 23d. Give me leave, in 
passing, to say that the Seventh United States Infantry, 
which took a leading part in this important battle, was 
composed almost exclusively of Kentuckians, and, with 
pleasure, I add, that their commander, in this decisive 
affair, was Major Peire, of Louisiana. 

General John Watts de Peyster, one of the ablest mili- 
tary critics our country has produced, has left upon 
record the opinion that General Jackson really saved 
New Orleans by his night attack of December 23d, be- 
cause this daring slap on the face made the British over- 
rate Jackson's strength. Instead of forcing the fighting, 



11 

tliey became overcautious afterwards, and thereby time 
was gained, which, to Jackson, short of men and without 
defenses, was of yjriceless vahie. 

Doctor Fortier, in his well-written history, has also 
said: "The battle of December 23d, was very impor- 
tant, and Jackson's impetuosity probably saved New Or- 
leans, which might not have resisted a sudden attack." 

"Never was there a bolder conception," declares 
Judge Alexander Walker, "never was there one which 
indicated greater courage and resolution. Here was a 
master-stroke of a native military genius." 

The same view is also expressed by George Eobert 
Gleig, author of "The Subaltern in America," and by 
Captain John Watts, both of the British army, and both 
participants in the New Orleans campaign. The truth is 
that Jackson, without knowing it, was enforcing the 
pregnant maxim of Napoleon, that an inferior force 
should never wait to be attacked, and, to his sturdy ad- 
versary, he fearlessly applied the principle that, in war- 
fare, he who dallies or hesitates is lost. 

On the 4th of January, 1815, the long-delayed Ken- 
tucky militia, twenty-two hundred and fifty strong, un- 
der the command of Brigadier-General John Adair (Gen- 
eral Thomas having been incapacitated by illness), 
reached New Orleans, but, through no fault of theirs, 
these men came only partially provided with arms and 
amnnmition. Out of this reinforcement, only about a 
thousand were found sufficiently equipped or could 
hastily be armed for service, and these were marched at 
once to the firing-line, on the plains of Chalmette. The 



12 

'1- 



Kentuckians whom Jackson denounced for tlieir inglori 
ous flight, and who, as Parton has it, by this one act of 
hasty injustice, were thenceforth immortalized, were 
posted across the river under General David B. Morgan, 
but, all told, did not exceed one hundred and seventy in 
number, and they were not placed in position across the 
river until early on the morning of January 8th, on the 
verv eve of the fateful battle. Opposed to General ]yl or- 
gan and his ill-assorted, undisciplined and untried militia, 
was a strong British force under Colonel Thornton, who, 
Brady and Buell both declare, was the ablest English 
soldier present. Out-numbered, out-manoeuvred, and 
overmatched, the Americans under Patterson and ^lor- 
gan were soon forced to abandon their ill-chosen and 

untenable position. 

At dawn on Sunday, January 8tli, the solid colmnns 
of the British army advanced toward the American line 
for a grand assault. Once well within range, the Amer- 
icans opened upon them with a deadly fire of cannon and 
musketrv, and the execution of the riflemen, conceded be- 
hind the breastworks, which extended almost straight 
across these plains from the river on the west to the 
swamps on the east, was so terrific, the havoc so 
frightful, as to compel the attacking columns to re- 
tire. Again, and yet again, did the veteran regi- 
ments of the British army return to the attack, but 
all in vain. In less than an hour, they were com- 
pletelv overwhelmed, and retired in disorder, leaving 
more than two thousand in dead, wounded, and prisoners 
on the field. The rattle of musketry and the booming of 



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cannon across this hard-fought field had ceased by half- 
past eight in the morning, and naught denoting conflict 
was to be heard save the groans and outcries of the 
wounded and dying. The British fought with the great- 
est bravery, says Fortier, but had been met with equal 
bravery by men who were defending their country, and 
who displayed that wonderful skill in handling fire-arms, 
for which Americans, especially the pioneers and fron- 
tiersmen, have always been noted. The total loss of the 
British, on both sides of the river, was 2,036, or, in the 
final aggregate, possibly a thousand more, while that of 
the Americans, at the highest estimate, was only seventy- 
one! According to the British returns, the grand total 
of their killed and wounded was 3,326. Fourteen thou- 
sand British veterans had been repulsed by five thousand 
American volunteers; Jackson's "backwoods rabble" 
had beaten the best of Europe's regulars. Such another 
victor}^, so cheaply bought, is not recorded in the war- 
time annals of civilized man. 

The discomfiture and rout of the British, on this side 
of the river, were, to a degree, counter-balanced and 
jeopardized, however, by the repulse suffered by the 
American troops on the west bank. For this misadven- 
ture, Jackson himself must bear part of the blame. ' ' Re- 
sponsibility for the disaster on the west bank," says Pro- 
fessor John Spencer Bassett, "rests on Morgan and 
Patterson, who adopted an impossible line of defense, and 
on Jackson, who was ignorant of the conditions there, and 
who failed to send troops enough to hold it." His failure 
strongly to fortify and hold that point under a com- 



14 

petent commander, says Brady, "is the one military 
mistake that he made." But through the prompt and 
judicious handling of the situation by Jackson, with his 
"swift, intuitive perception of the way to act in emergen- 
cies," the victory, which so narrowly escaped being 
turned into a defeat, or merely a drawn battle, barren of 
results, was made sure. 

In spite of the seeming misbehavior, under very try- 
ing and untoward circumstances, of the handful of Ken- 
tucky soldiers on the far bank of the Mississippi, which 
excited General Jackson's wrathful displeasure, in a 
special address to the men of General Morgan's com- 
mand, delivered shortly after this lost ground had been 
recovered, as well as in a General Order to the entire 
body of the American troops, issued two w^eeks after the 
battle, in praise of their valor, the commander-in-chief 
did not withhold full credit from those to whom credit 
was justly due and made full atonement for the unsparing 
severity of his earlier censure. 

To the troops defending the opposite bank of the Mis- 
sissippi, he said : 

"To what cause was the abandonment of your 
lines owing? To fear? No! You are the country- 
men, the friends, the brothers of those wdio have se- 
cured to themselves, by their courage, the gratitude 
of their country; who have been prodigal of their 
blood in its defense, and who are strangers to any 
other fear than disgrace. * * * How then could 
brave men, firm in the cause in vv^iich they are en- 
rolled, neglect their first duty, and abandon the post 



15 

committed to their care? The want of discipline, the 
want of order, a total disregard to obedience, and a 
spirit of insubordination, not less destructive than 
cowardice itself, are the causes that led to this dis- 
aster, and they must be eradicated, or I must cease to 
command. * * * ^he brave man, inattentive to 
his duty, is worth little more to his country than the 
coward wlio deserts her in the hour of danger." 

To the troops marshalled here and hereabouts, under 
his own immediate command, he said : 

"A rampart of high-minded men is a better de- 
fense than the most regular fortifications. General 
Adair, who brought up the Kentucky militia, has 
shown that troops will always be valiant when their 
leaders are so. No men ever displayed a more gal- 
lant spirit than these did under that most valuable 
officer. His country is under obligations to him. ' ' 

The disastrous outcome of the battle fought here one 
hundred years ago, was, perhaps, the greatest shock that 
the pride of Great Britain had ever received, and her 
mortification was not lessened by the rough chastisement 
which had been inflicted upon her warships and merchant- 
men alike by our small but gallant navy on the seas. 

William Cobbett, an English essayist, better known in 
America under his pen name of "Peter Porcupine," who, 
late in life, became a member of Parliament, and one of 
the numerous biographers of General Jackson, said of 
the bloody death-grapple on the Plains of Chalmette : 



16 

''This battle of New Orleans broke the heart of 
European despotism. The man who won it, did, in 
that one act, more for the good and the honor of the 
human race than was ever done by any other man, ' ' 

Cyrus Townsend Brady has said: 

''The popular idea is that the battle of New Or- 
leans, having been fought after peace was declared, 
was a perfectly useless slaughter of no value in de- 
termining the issue of the war. So far from being 
a useless slaughter, this battle was the most impor- 
tant and decisive fought on this continent between 
Yorktown and Gettysburg, Andrew Jackson contrib- 
uted to the future of his country in a degree only 
surpassed by Washington, who founded it, and by 
Lincoln, who preserved it. For to Andrew Jackson 
is due the vital fact that the western boundary of 
the United States is the Pacific, and not the Missis- 
sippi, ' ' 

Colonel Augustus C, Buell, in his unrivaled "History 
of Andrew Jackson," was the first to demonstrate this 
momentous fact. As he has conclusively shown, the 
staggering blow dealt the British here made the Treaty 
of Ghent a reality. It saved Louisiana and set the seal 
of permanence and inviolability upon Jefferson's pur- 
chase of that vast imperial domain. 

Throughout the Union, the victory of New Orleans 
was the cause of boundless delight, more especially be- 
cause the news of it reached the country at large at just 
about the same time as the news of peace, and there was 



17 

no fear for the future to mar the exultation inspired by 
this signal triumph. For his countrymen, the victor had 
won "something dearer than anything set forth in trea- 
ties." He had revived and invigorated the national self- 
respect. It is not hard, therefore, to understand how, 
forgetting its failures and its disappointments, Ameri- 
cans all dare speak of the War of 1812, with complacency 
and pride ; for, effacing every trace of previous disaster 
and blotting out the forlorn hopes and dark forebodings 
of that ominous January morning, when it seemed as if 
this "fair Creole city" was already in Pakenham's 
grasp, there rises resplendent before his admiring 
countrymen the thin tall figure of a grim-visaged horse- 
man, standing beside an embrasure of the Chalmette 
breastworks and peering out beneath the uplifted veil of 
mingled smoke and fog over the ghastly heaps of British 
dead- — a vision of defeat and of victory not to be sur- 
passed even by that of Wellington at Waterloo ! 

Jackson, from the beginning, had been the soul 
of the defense in the southwest, and to his energy, 
intrepidity and perseverance success was due. In 
the short space of fifteen months, between September, 
1813, and January, 1815, he had passed, says Professor 
Sumner, "from the status of an obscure Tennessee 
planter to that of the most distinguished and popular 
man in the country. ' ' 

In spite of the heavy fine imposed upon him by Judge 
Hall, for his alleged contempt of the Federal Court of 
this District, to which oppressive penalty, with rare dig- 
nity and a most commendable law-abiding deference, 



18 

Jackson obediently submitted, New Orleans has shown 
itself neither ungrateful for Jackson's timely and ines- 
timable services, nor unmindful of his crowning success. 
You need not, of course, be told of the solemn service of 
thanksgiving and praise held in the ancient Saint Louis 
Cathedral, just two weeks after the battle, and the crown- 
ing there of the returning conqueror with a wreath of 
laurel, "the prize of victory, the symbol of immortality," 
as the venerable prelate. Abbe Dubourg, described it. 
In Jackson Square and in the magnificent equestrian 
statue, which adorns its central spaces, quite as much as 
in the hearts of the people of this mighty metropolis, 
have the sons of Louisiana recorded their profound ad- 
miration and their abiding love for the pre-eminent hero 
of our second War for Independence. Of a truth, may 
it be affirmed of him, in the language of a worthy divine 
of this wondrous city, whose greatness and glory will be 
forever associated with his name — "His epitaph is his 
country's history, his cenotaph, the hearts of his coun- 
trymen. ' ' 

"Jackson," says Mr. Eoosevelt, in his Naval War 
of 1812, "is certainly by all odds the most prominent 
figure that appears during this war, and he stands 
head and shoulders above any other commander, 
either American or British, that it produced. It will 
be difficult, in all history, to show a parallel to the 
feat that he performed. Moreover, it must be remem- 
bered that Jackson's success was in nowise due either 
to chance or to the errors of his adversary. Of 
course, Jackson owed much to the nature of the 



PLAN 

OF THE ATTACK AND DEFENCE OF THE 
AMERICAxN LINES 

Below New Orleans, on the 8th January, 1815. 

B) MAJOR A. lACAKlilEKE LATOl R, principal Knu-inwr III. 
Militar) Dislricl, U. S. Army. ISl.J. 




19 

ground on wliicli he fought, but the opportunity it 
afforded woukl have been useless in the hands of any 
General less ready, hardy and skillful than 'Old 
Hickory.' The American soldiers deserve great 
credit for doing so well, but greater credit still be- 
longs to Andrew Jackson, who, with his cool head and 
clear eye, his stout heart and strong hand, stands 
out in history as the ablest General the United States 
produced from the outbreak of the Revolution down 
to the beginning of the great rebellion." 

Jackson's Seminole Campaign, in 1817-1818, lasted 
only five months, but in that brief space of time he had 
broken the Indian power, established peace on the trou- 
bled border, and practically conquered Florida. This 
five months and the eighteen months of service from 
1813 to 1815, is all the actual warfare ho ever saw. The 
Seminole War was, in itself, one of the least significant of 
our Indian campaigns, but in its relations and effects, it 
was, like the Creek War before it, one of the most im- 
portant and far-reaching events in our history. For 
Jackson, it made certain and permanent, the reputation 
and influence he had acquired by his successes against 
the British here at New Orleans. To Jackson, above all 
others, belongs the credit of bringing Spain to terms and 
to him we owe the ultimate acquisition of the Floridas. 
Abstract and argumentative claims of his government 
w^ere by him translated into action and he gained, in con- 
sequence, a high place among the heroes of American ex- 
pansion. 



20 



By a not uncommon course of development, the Hero 
of New Orleans, passed, in a short while, from the field 
of war to the field of national politics. Given a plurality 
of both the popular and electoral vote for the Presidency, 
in 1824, but defeated, in the House of Representatives,' 
by John Quincy Adams, Jackson, in 1828, turned the 
tables and was elected President, defeating Adams by an 
unprecedented majority, and was re-elected for a second 
term in 1832, defeating Henry Clay by a like spectacular 
majority. 

But little can be said, in the time that remains, re- 
specting his political record. Public questions of the 
most vital importance were before the country during 
both his first and second administrations. On all of these 
questions Jackson's views were clearly defined and em- 
phatically expressed. He was not always right, but there 
is no doubt that he always believed himself right, in the 
views he entertained and, for the most part, carried into 
execution. Yet respecting the quality of his statesman- 
ship, no less a person than John Fiske has said : 

"While he was not versed in the history and phi- 
losophy of government, it is far from correct to say 
that there was nothing of the statesman about him. 
On the contrary, it may be maintained that in nearly 
all of his most important acts, except those that dealt 
with the civil service, Jackson was right." 

The outstanding events of his two terms were those 
involving the Tariff, Nullification and the Bank of the 
United States. Second in importance only to these were 
the reshaping of our Foreign Relations, Segregation of 



21 

tlie Indians, and devising constitutional ways and means 
for promoting Internal Improvements. 

Someone lias said that we might as well expect to free 
ourselves from the pressure of the atmosphere as to 
abolish the money power. Some kind of a National Bank- 
ing System is indispensable, and this fact was recognized 
and admitted by Jackson, but impartial investigation and 
later historical criticism have done much to produce the 
conviction that, in his attitude towards the Bank of the 
United States, and in his dealings with that institution, 
Jackson was essentially right. The National Bank of 
1832 had unquestionably become a menace. 

The "Tariff of Abominations" of 1828 was displaced 
by the Compromise Tariff of 1832, which was a significant, 
though only partial, victory for the Democratic theory 
that tariffs should be framed primarily for revenue and 
only secondarily and incidentally, and always within rea- 
sonable limits, for protection. 

The country can never thank Jackson enough for the 
firm and effective manner in which he faced and quelled 
the rising spirit of disunion concealed in the Nullifica- 
tion proceedings of his native State of South Carolina.* 
Today, at the distance of a century from the Battle of 
New Orleans, and of a full half century from Lee's sur- 
render at Appomattox, we can all join with Jackson, in 
his memorable toast, given at a public dinner in the city 
of AVashington, in 1830 : 

"The Federal Union — it must and shall be pre- 
served ! ' ' 



*See Appendix. 



22 

This sentiment, thank God, is virtually unanimous to- 
day, but when Jackson first uttered it, it took more than 
ordinary independence, nerve and courage, for a South- 
ern man frankly to avow such a thought. 

With the lapse of time, we have come more and more 
to understand that the purpose of those who framed the 
Federal Constitution was to restrain and regulate, rather 
than to establish or extend, democracy. Whether, in its 
origin, it contemplated merely a loose league or con- 
federation or an indissoluble union of States, it was pre- 
eminently a system of checks and balances, guarding, on 
the one hand, against the perils of populistic predomi- 
nance quite as much as, on the other, against the evils of 
centralized power. While Jackson was always firm 
and unswerving in his fidelity to the Union, he was 
also a consistent advocate of individual liberty, and 
a stalwart champion of the reserved rights of the 
States. In the practical administration of affairs, he 
came as near to harmonizing Federal sovereignty with 
States' Eights, as it was possible to do, during the gen- 
eration in which he lived. Jackson was the living em- 
bodiment, the veritable incarnation and personification of 
the spirit of genuine democracy. With him, the rule of 
the people was not a mere abstract theory or specious 
dogma, with which to decoy the imagination or to amuse 
the voters at election time, but was a living, breathing, 
vital truth, to be carried into every-day practice; and, 
however misdirected at times, the end and aim of all his 
efforts was to confirm to his fellow-countrymen the es- 
sential democracy of the constitution. 



23 

With Chief Justice Marshall on the Supreme Bench, 
breathing the breath of life into the Constitution, and 
moulding and shaping the Federal system, organized 
thereunder, into a compact, coherent and self-sustaining 
whole, it was most fortunate that there should have been 
at the helm of the government, as Chief Executive of the 
Nation, a man of Jackson's calibre, with his centrifugal 
temperament and tendencies, for each thereby furnished 
an indispensable and salutary balance-wheel to the other. 
The divergence between the two men was in nothing more 
strikingly exhibited than in their discordant dealings 
with the memorable clash between the Cherokee Nation 
and the State of Georgia. For once the authority of the 
Supreme Court was flouted. "John Marshall," said 
Jackson, in a remark which one can scarcely regard as 
apocryphal, "John Marshall has made his decision; now 
let him enforce it!" Yet how plainly were these giants 
of one mind in the portentous collision with South Caro- 
lina, that superlative crisis of the ante-helium South! 

Under no other administration has the country ever 
been favored with State papers of greater weiglit or im- 
portance, or more vigorously phrased, than during the 
administrations of this towering Titan of Tennessee. The 
fact is well known that the composition of these papers, 
was seldom, or never, directly traceable to the President, 
but while the language, or phraseology, may oftentimes 
have been that of another, the thoughts and principles 
and spirit were invariably and unmistakably those of 
Jackson himself. If time sufficed, it would give me in- 
finite pleasure to read from these public utterances of 



24 

General Jackson, to illustrate liis character as a states- 
man, his animating impulses as a man, his predominant 
traits as a typical exponent and exemplar of democracy, 
but that must be left for greater leisure than the pres- 
ent occasion affords. 

In common acceptation, Jefferson and Jackson are 
frequently joined as the leading representatives and ex- 
positors of democracy, but judged by the modern align- 
ment of political parties and the progressive spirit of 
democracy now prevalent, Jackson may fairly be re- 
garded as more nearly the arch-type and founder of pres- 
ent-day democracy and the party organized and domi- 
nant in the United States under that name, than his illus- 
trious forerunner, Thomas Jefferson. It is not, perhaps, 
too much to say that Jacksonian Democracy, as it came 
to be known, was a plant of enduring growth, and tliat it 
still survives and flourishes among us. And, saying it 
with all reverence, may we not voice the hope that the 
leaves of this century plant may yet prove to be "for the 
healing of the nations." If the dead are cognizant of 
Avhat concerns the living, it can not but gladden the soul 
of the mighty warrior, who triumphed on this field, to 
know that this Centennial of his great victory is cele- 
brated under a Democratic administration and that we 
have today as true a democrat as Jackson himself, on 
duty in the White House. 

This celebration of a notable victory by one branch of 
the Anglo-American race over another, is also the occa- 
sion for the commemoration of a century of peace which, 
ever since the noise of battle on this field died away, has 



25 

been maintained unbroken between the United States and 
the British Empire. Nearly a decade has passed since 
a profound student of American history declared — "If 
there be an American ideal of the relations of this coun- 
try with the outer world, it is that of peace, founded on 
mutual understanding and mutual respect." Jackson 
himself, in his First Annual Message to Congress, used 
these weighty words : 

"With Great Britain, alike distinguished in peace 
and war, we may look forward to years of peaceful, 
honorable, and elevated competition. Everything in 
the condition and history of the two nations is cal- 
culated to inspire sentiments of mutual respect and 
to carry conviction to the minds of both that it is 
their policy to preserve the most cordial relations." 

When one speaks of the hundred years of peace be- 
tween the United States and the British Empire, he, of 
course, does not mean that this has been a century of un- 
clouded serenity or unruflfled brotherly love. It is not too 
much to say that more than once have the two countries 
been on the very verge of war, and there have been times 
not a few, as in the Oregon controversy and the Trent 
affair, when an open rupture of amicable relations was 
averted by little more than a hair's breadth. 

The Treaty of Ghent, which signalized the close of the 
War of 1812, is important as marking the commencement 
and, in a large sense, as constituting the foundation of 
the hundred years of peace which thenceforward ensued. 



26 

At the end of the century, the two facts next in impor- 
tance to the Treaty itself are, first, the fact that somehow 
or other the United States and Great Britain have man- 
aged to adjust their differences by negotiation, arbitra- 
tion and diplomacy instead of by resort to the arbitra- 
ment of war; and, secondly, the concrete, incontestable 
and crowning fact that two great nations of the world, 
two world-powers, if you please, touching each other at 
many points of contact and coming into close and con- 
stantly-increasing competition, have actually maintained 
peaceful relations with each other for a full hundred 
years. 

Concerning the more important celebration of this 
century of peace which, in common with all here assem- 
bled, I pray may be renewed with each recurring century, 
I take leave to remind you how its value and significance 
have been emphasized by leading public men of Great 
Britain. On this subject, The Right Honourable Viscount 
Bryce, (whom we are tempted still to call plain Mr. 
Bryce), has spoken both feelingly and to the point. In 
September last, he said: 

"To those who are saddened by the calamities 
which the year 1914 has brought upon Europe, it is 
a consoling thought that the century of peace which 
has raised the English-speaking peoples from forty 
millions to one hundred and sixty millions, has 
created among those peoples a sense of kindliness 
and good will which was never seen before, and which 



27 

is the surest pledge of their future prosperity and 
progress as well as of the maintenance of a perpetual 
friendship between them. ' ' 

''One of the surest guaranties of peace," adds the 
distinguished author of the ''American Common- 
wealth," "has been the fact that neither of these 
great nations has ever questioned the sanctity of 
treaties, or denied that States are bound by the moral 
law. ' ' 

In recent years, another British statesman, Mr. Bal- 
four, giving implied approval to the Monroe Doctrino, 
has said : 

' ' The time may come — nay, the time must come — 
when some statesman of authority, more fortunate 
even than President Monroe, will lay down the doc- 
trine that between English-speaking peoples war is 
impossible." 

A little more than a year ago, at the celebration at 
Put-in-Bay, Ohio, of tlie Centennial of Perry's superb vic- 
tory on Lake Erie, Doctor James A. Macdonald, of 
Toronto, a foremost representative of the intelligent 
thought and temper of our Canadian brothers on the 
North, used these impressive words : 

"In the light of the hundred years through which 
we of today read the story of that one battle and of 
that whole war, the lesson, the supreme and abiding 
lesson, for the United States and for Canada, is this : 
the utter futility and inconsequence of war as a 



28 

means for the just settlement of disputes between 
these two nations. That lesson we both have learned. 
That war was our last war. It will remain our last. 
Never again will the armed troops of the United 
States and Canada meet, except in friendly review, 
or, if the day ever comes, to stand side by side and 
shoulder to shoulder in the Armageddon of the na- 
tions. Witness these great lakes for nigh a hundred 
years swept clean of every battleship, and this trans- 
continental boundary line for four thousand miles un- 
defended save by the civilized instincts and tlie in- 
telligent good will of both nations. xVnd having 
learned that great lesson, having proved its worth 
through a hundred years, the United States and Can- 
ada, these two English-speaking peoples of America, 
have earned the right to stand up and teach the na- 
tions. International peace and good will is Amer- 
ica's message to all the world. 

"That message, spoken by two voices, one from 
the United States, the other from Canada, is one 
message. It is America's message that on this con- 
tinent, between two proud peoples, the barbarism of 
brute force has long yielded to civilized internation- 
alism. It is the assurance that Canada's national 
standing on this conlinent binds the British Empire 
and the American Republic in one world-spanning, 
English-speaking fraternity. On all continents and 
on all seas, the power of America is the combined 
power of the United States and Canada, plus the 
power of Britain and of the British dominions in the 



29 

South Atlantic and beyond the Pacific. These all 
are bound together, each with all the others, for the 
maintenance of that principle of nationhood — any 
people that desires to be free and is fit to be free 
ought to be free and must be free. That principle 
means peace and freedom in the English-speaking 
world. 

"At this place, and on this day, our deepest con- 
cern is not with the wars of the past, but with the 
peace of the future; not with the triumphs or the 
defeats of yesterday, but with the responsibilities 
and obligations of tomorrow; not with the glory that 
either Nation achieved a hundred years ago, but with 
the message which both nations, speaking in the name 
of our common North American civilization, shall 
give to the world through the hundred years to 
come." 

These pledges of the past are sure auguries for the 
future, and, rejoicing as we do today, that, under Divine 
Providence, the War of 1812, on the land as well as upon 
the sea, should have ended in a blaze of military glory 
for our beloved country, we may, none the less heartily, 
felicitate ourselves that the glories of that mighty con- 
flict marked the commencement of a millennium of un- 
broken peace among all English-speaking nations, and 
let us hope among all peoples and kindreds and tongues 
of the earth who, like the English and their American 
cousins, have learned the secret and mastered the prob- 
lem of self-government. 



30 

''Sovereignty," said the mighty Bismarck, "can only 
be a unit and it must remain a unit — the sovereignty of 
law, ' ' Rightly interpreted, the sovereignty of the people 
means the sovereignty of the law. When the law is 
regnant, the people reign. It was not so much for mere 
selfish independence, but for this priceless boon, the 
right of local self-government, for popular sovereignty, 
under enlightened rules of law, that the War of the Rev- 
olution was fought; and toward this ultimate goal of 
progressive democracy and of Anglo-American civiliza- 
tion, every subsequent war of our history has inevitably 
tended. 

To that highest consummation, the establishment and 
perpetuation of government by discussion rather than of 
"government by convulsion," Andrew Jackson, a "man 
of blood and iron" excelling any German prince, con- 
tributed as much, or more, than any other American dur- 
ing the hundred years just ended. Whatever difference 
of opinion there may be as to his treatment of domestic 
affairs, no other President ever enforced a more vigor- 
ous foreign policy, and the key to it all, in Jackson's own 
words, was this — "It is my settled purpose to ask noth- 
ing that is not clearly right and to submit to nothing that 
is wrong." He it was who first inaugurated "shirt- 
sleeve" diplomacy, as distinguished from "dollar diplo- 
macy" or the diplomacy of deceit, and this downright, 
straightforw^ard, and outspoken mode of dealing with in- 
ternational relations, has, with but few lapses, served our 
country acceptably for well on to a century. Patriotism in 
its highest purity and perfection was, with Jackson, a na- 



tural endowment. From the day, in early boyhood, when 
he resented the insult of a domineering British soldier, 
nntil that day, at the Hermitage, three-score years later, 
when he affixed his signature to his last will, ''there is ab- 
solutely no reason to believe that Andrew Jackson ever 
looked upon an enemy of his country otherwise than as 
his own mortal foe." "I thank God," said the veteran 
soldier and statesman most truly and touchingly, in his 
Farewell Address, "that my life has been spent in a land 
of liberty and that He has given me a heart to love my 
country wit li the affection of a son. ' ' 

Greatness is primarily a matter of character but the 
world measures it usually by results. By both tests Gen- 
eral Jackson was undeniably one of the very greatest of 
our great men. Yet, in any just appraisement of his 
career and achievements, we may not overlook how deeply 
he was indebted to men like Coffee, Carroll, Claiborne, 
Crockett and Houston, his dauntless lieutenants on the 
field of battle, and to men like Livingston, Lewis, 
Eaton, Grundy, Barry, Blair and Benton, his inval- 
uable aides and loyal supporters in tlie legislative, 
diplomatic, and cabinet contests with which his path- 
way in politics was continually beset. Bearing in 
mind this outside aid and how far it went to insure 
success and to fortify his fame, I should be loath 
to close without attempting, through the medium of two 
or three impartial and discriminating tributes, to set be- 
fore you some luminous glimpses of his extraordinary 
character and the secret of his enduring renown. 



32 

"General Jackson," says President Wilson, from 
whose History of the American People I take these 
short, deft strokes, "had been bred by the rongh pro- 
cesses of the frontier; had been his own schoolmaster 
and tutor; had made himself a lawyer by putting his 
untaught sagacity and sense of right to the test in 
the actual conduct of suits in court, as he had made 
himself a soldier by taking the field in command of 
frontier volunteers as unschooled as himself in dis- 
cipline and tactics. There was no touch of the char- 
latan or the demagogue about idm. The action of 
his mind was as direct, as sincere, as unsophisti- 
cated as the action of the mind of an ingenuous 
child, though it exhibited also the sustained inten- 
sity and the range of the mature man. * * * It 
had needed such a striking personality as this to 
bring parties to a head. They took form rapidly 
enough when he came upon the .field. The men of 
the masses had becom-e the stuff of politics. These 
men Jackson really represented, albeit witli a touch 
of the knight and chivalrous man of honor about 
him, which common men do not have; and the people 
knew it; felt that an aristocratic order was upset, 
and that they themselves had at last come to their 
own. It was a second democratization of the govern- 
ment. * * * With all the intensity of his nature. 
General Jackson wished for the welfare of the 
country, the advancement of the Union, the success 
and permanency of its government; with all the ter- 
rible force of his will he purposed to secure botli the 



one and the other. No doubt he had shown contempt 
for law, as Mr. Jefferson said, when he was upon 
the frontier, hampered by treaties and instructions ; 
but his ideals were not those of the law-breaker. 
They were those of the ardent patriot." 

"Autocrat as he was," says Parton, "Andrew 
Jackson loved the people, the common people, the 
sons and daughters of toil, as truly as they loved 
him, and believed in them as they believed in him. 
He was in accord with his generation. He had a 
clear perception tliat the toiling millions are not a 
class in the community, but are the community. He 
knew and felt that government should exist only for 
the benefit of the governed; that the strong are 
strong only as they may aid the weak; that the rich 
are rightfully rich only that they may so combine and 
direct the labor of the poor as to make labor more 
profitable to the L'lborer." 

Thomas Hart Benton, his life-time friend and unfail- 
ing champion, has said : 

"The character of his mind was that of judg- 
ment, with a rapid and almost intuitive perception, 
followed by an instant and decisive action, * * * 
It was the nature of Andrew Jackson to finish what- 
ever he undertook. He went for a clean victory or a 
clean defeat." 

"No man in private life," says George Bancroft, 
"so possessed the hearts of all around him; no pub- 



34 

lie man of tliis century ever returned to private life 
with such an abiding mastery over the affections of 
the people. No man with truer instinct received 
American ideas ; no man expressed them so com- 
pletely, or so boldly, or so sincerely. * * * jj^g. 
tory does not describe the man that equaled him in 
firmness of nerve. Not danger, not an army in bat- 
tle array, not wounds, not widespread clamor, not 
age, not the anguish of disease, could impair in the 
least degree the vigor of his steadfast mind. The 
heroes of antiquity would have contemplated with 
awe the unmatched hardihood of his character; and 
Napoleon, had he possessed his disinterested will, 
could never have been vanquished. ' ' 

From the pages of a painstaking and appreciative 
study by Professor William Garrott Brown, I have ex- 
tracted and leave with you this deliberate and final esti- 
mate : 

"The longest inquiry," says Professor Brown, 
"will not discover another American of his time who 
had in such ample measure the gifts of courage and 
will. Many had fewer faults, many superior talents, 
but none so great a spirit. He was the man wlio had 
his way. He was the American whose simple virtues 
his countrymen most clearly imderstood, whose tres- 
passes they most readily forgave ; and, until Amer- 
icans are altogether changed, many, like the Demo- 
crats of the 'twenties and 'thirties, will still vote for 
Jackson — for the poor boy who fought his way, step 



by step, to the highest station; for the soklier who 
always went to meet the enemy at the gate ; for the 
President who never shirked a responsibility; for the 
man who would not think evil of a woman, or speak 
harshly to a child. Education, and training in state- 
craft, would have saved him many errors; culture 
might have softened the fierceness of his nature. But 
untrained, uncultivated, imperfect as he was, not one 
of his great contemporaries had so good a right to 
stand for American character." 




ANDREW JACKSON 

Engraved from a Miniature Painted in New Orleans, Immediately after the 

Battle of New Orleans, by Jean Francois Valle, under Jackson's 

Orders. The Fac-simile of the Note that went with 

it to Edward Livingston, Explains Itself. 



^€ /. 












.^ 






L> Y-*^, 



JL<.^t^ 



o-H^^ 



APPENDIX. 



BIRTHPLACE OF ANDREW JACKSON, 



In the New Orleans Times-Picayune, of Monday, January 11, 1915, 
there was published the following item: 

JACKSON BIRTHPLACE IN NORTH CAROLINA. 



Bennehan Cameron Corrects Gentleman From Kentucky 
on Important Point. 



At the international banquet Saturday night, Bennehan Cam- 
eron, scion of the distinguished Cameron family of North Carolina, 
who was sent by the Legislature to represent the Tar Heel State 
at the celebration of the centenaiy celebration of the battle of New 
Orleans, said he had been sent to bear the greetings of his native 
State and to thank the people of Louisiana for the honor they 
were doing to the memory of her distinguished son, the hero of 
New Orleans. He said when he attended the beautiful ceremonies 
at Chalmette he was chagrined to hear the eloquent orator from 
Kentucky ascribe the birthplace of Jackson to another State, and 
he added: "In spite of the mistake of the distinguished gentleman 
from Kentucky, we North Carolinians will still claim the great 
Jackson as one of her sons. He was born at Waxhaw in North 
Carolina, and was there nurtured through his youth till he be- 
came a practicing attorney at Salisbury. Later he migrated to 
the West, took a few law books, some thoroughbred horses and a 
pack of hounds. Some of his horses he placed with my grand- 
father to be raised on shares. They were by Sir Archie, the head 
of the horse family in America. This was the foundation of the 
Hermitage stud." 

At the Richmond peace conference last winter, said the speaker, 
it was agreed that each State should mark the centenary of peace 
by some memorial. It was at first thought that Jackson should be 
placed in bronze at the capitol at Raleigh, as he had made possi- 
ble the century of peace. But later it was considered that this 
would be invidious, when Great Britain was arranging to place 
-the statue of Washington in Westminster Abbey and was endow- 
ing Sulgrave Manor to be the Mecca of American visitors. So 
North Carolina selected "that brave soldier and sailor, that splen- 
did statesman and diplomat, that brilliant courtier and colonizer. 
Sir Walter Raleigh, whose colony at Roanoke Island was the first 
to set foot on the American continent, twenty-two years prior to 
the permanent settlement at Jamestown and thirty-six years be- 
fore Plymouth Rock." The speaker said he had seen at Fulham 
Palace in London the order in the handwriting of Queen Elizabeth 
ordering and directing the Bishop of London to assume jurisdic- 
tion of the church at Roanoke Island. 



38 

He said every school boy in North Carolina knew that State 
had given three Presidents to the American republic through her 
"lusty young daughter," Tennessee — Jackson, Polk and Johnson. 

Subsequent to the appearance of the foregoing item there was 
published, in one of the local papers of Raleigh, N. C, what purports 
to have been the response of Colonel Bennehan Cameron to the toast, 
"North Carolina — Happy the State that Gave Birth to Such a Man," 
on the programme of the Centennial Peace Banquet given at the Hotel 
Grunewald, in New Orleans, on the evening of January 9, 1915, under 
the auspices of the Louisiana Historical Society. This article in the 
Raleigh paper is an amplification of the interview given to the Times- 
Picayune and published, as above seated, in its issue of January 11, 
1915. 

When the address on Andrew Jackson was delivered by the writer 
on the Chalmette Battlefield and casual allusion was made by him to 
Jackson's "native State of South Carolina," nothing could have been 
farther from his thoughts than the purpose of causing chagrin or of 
provoking a controversy with any one. Moreover, the fact that any 
one had suffered chagrin was unknown to him until the item in the 
Times-Picayune appeared. On account of the lateness of the hour, 
several of the later speeches on the banquet programme, including the 
response intended to be made by Mr. Cameron to the toast, "North 
Carolina," were canceled and, consequently, the statement attributed 
to Mr. Cameron in the New Orleans interview and the toast published 
at Raleigh were neither of them addressed openly to the assembled 
banqueters. Hence the first direct accusation of the alleged faux pas 
which reached the writer came through the medium of the newspapers 
mentioned. 

Having no disposition to give causeless offense and being anxious 
always to avoid mistakes in matters historical, the writer may be par- 
doned for uttering a word in his own defense. 

It will be observed that Mr. Camei^on disposes of the alleged "mis- 
take" by mere naked claim and bald assertion. Without citing the 
slightest proof or a single authority, he confidently asserts that the 
Hero of New Orleans was born in North Carolina, and, all proof to 
the contrary notwithstanding, will continue to be claimed by that great 
State as one of her sons. 

All who have given any study to the life or career of General 
Jackson know that, as is not unusual in the case of great men, the 
precise place of his bii-th is and has long been a matter of dispute. 
The champions respectively of North and South Carolina have waged 
a prolonged war of words over this much-mooted question. Conscious 
of these rival claims and of the sharp contradiction between them, the 
language used in the address delivered at Chalmette on the Centennial 
Anniversary was somewhat guarded. The words of that address were 
that Jackson was bom "in the Waxhaw District, on the border of the 
Carolinas," without saying on which side of the border. Later, how- 



31) 

ever, in referring to the prompt and effectual quietus he put upon 
Nullification in South Carolina, it was spoken of as "his native State." 
Jackson himself so spoke of it in his celebrated Proclamation of De- 
cember 10, 1832. This is what he said: 

"Fellow-citizens of my native State, let me not only admonish 
you, as the First Magistrate of our common country, not to incur 
the penalty of its laws, but vise the influence that a father would 
over his children whom he saw rushing to certain ruin." 

This statement had the widest publicity, for the proclamation was 
read and discussed at the time from one end of the country to the 
other. After Jackson had become famous, the question concerning the 
location of his birthplace was a subject of animated debate. It is not 
known exactly how or upon what authority the North Carolina con- 
tention started, but the first mention of it seems to have appeared 
early in 1815 in the Richmond (Va.) Inquirer. As early as 1820, how- 
ever, the House of Representatives of South Carolina, in accepting a 
marble bust of General Jackson, presented to the State Library, de- 
clared, by a formal legislative act: 

"We, as Carolinians, have a still more happy reason for gratu- 
lation that he, whose nativity has been the cause of rivalry for 
contending States, is acknowledged as our own." 

So far as is known, the personal statement by Jackson himself as 
to the State of his nativity was never once contradicted or impeached 
during his lifetime. There is indisputable evidence that on, at least, 
seven different occasions he claimed, in writing, that South Cai'olina 
was his native State. In his last will, dated June 7, 1843, nearly a 
generation after the Battle of New Orleans was fought, and when the 
question of nativity would seem to have had ample time to solve itself, 
he distinctly avows, with all the solemnity attending a testamentaiy 
paper, that South Carolina was his native State. 

There is no denying that Jackson himself sincerely believed and 
repeatedly declared that he was born in South Carolina and, while he 
lived, little, if any, evidence of moment was developed to the contrary. 
His bii'thplace, to be sure, was very close to the boundary line between 
the two Cai'olinas and, when he became a world-figure and his fame was 
assured, it would seem to have been inevitable that some controversy 
and rivalry should grow up between these two States as to which was 
really entitled to claim the distinction of having within its confines 
the site of his birth. 

The earlier biographies of Jackson all apparently agree in ac- 
crediting his birthplace to South Carolina. Not until 1859, fourteen 
years after Jackson's death, when Parton's Life appeared, does any 
responsible author appear to have denied that South Carolina was the 
State of his nativity. Some of the later writers (such, for example, 
as Lossing) apparently accept at its face value and without investiga- 
tion the statement of Parton (based largely on the vaguest hearsay 



40 

and the flimsiest tradition) that Jackson was a native of North Caro- 
lina, and give to the "Old North State" the credit of his origin. But 
Cyrus Townsend Brady, one of the latest and most careful and pene- 
trating students of Jackson's life, particularly of his private and per- 
sonal history, has given unqualified assent to the fact that, by birth, 
Andrew Jackson, was a South Carolinian. Brady's book was published 
in 1906. 

In the first edition of his "Andrew Jackson," published in 1882, 
Professor William Graham Sumner does not commit himself on the 
point, and in the second edition of the same book, which appeared in 
1899, this non-committal view is adhered to. Professor Sumner, in 
both editions, contents himself with this statement: 

"Parton fixes his birthplace in Union County, N. C; Kendall 
in South Carolina. In Jackson's Proclamation of 1832, in a letter 
of December 24, 1830, and in his will, he speaks of himself as a 
native of South Carolina." 

Hon. Z. F. Smith, in his "The Battle of New Orleans," Filson 
Club Publication Number Nineteen, which was published in 1904, and 
is the leading Kentucky authority on this battle, says: 

"Andrew Jackson was born in the Waxhaw Settlement on 
the 15th of March, 1767, so near the border of North and South 
Carolina as to leave it a question of contention as to which State 
may claim the honor of his nativity." 

Colonel Augustus C. Buell, whose splendid "History of Andrew 
Jackson" was published in 1904, tries to reconcile the conflicting claims 
by saying that the particular spot where Jackson was born was at 
one time in South Carolina and at another in North Carolina, thus 
giving to each State good ground for claiming him as a native son. 
Colonel A. C. Colyar and Professor William Garrott Brown appar- 
ently accept Barton's conclusion without question. 

Hon. James D. Richardson, member of Congress from Tennessee, 
who edited the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, published in 
1896, was, like Smith and Sumner, unwilling to commit himself on this 
subject and dodged the difficulty by stating that Andrew Jackson was 
born in the Waxhaw Settlement "in North or South Carolina." Here 
is one representative Tennesseean who is willing, at least, to admit a 
doubt on the subject. 

More recently, in 1909, Francis Newton Thorpe, in his valuable 
compilation, "The Statesmanship of Andrew Jackson," has adopted 
Brady's view and the view of all of the earlier biographers, as well as 
of Jackson himself, and has given South Carolina as his birthplace. 

Professor John Spencer Bassett, himself a North Carolinian, who 
published, in 1911, "The Life of Andrew Jackson," one of the latest 
and best of Jackson biographies, gives careful consideration to the 




Fac-simile of Section of Copper-plate Map of Lancaster District, South Carolina, Surveyed by 

J. Boykin, 1820, and Improved for Mills' Atlas, 1825, Showing "Gen'l A. Jackson's 

Birthplace," One Mile West of North Carolina Line. 

(Scale Two Miles to the Inch.) 



41 

question of Jackson's birthplace and, after reviewing the conflicting 
claims, concludes: 

"To the writer the weight of evidence seems to favor the South 
Carolinians." 

In a foot-note he adds : 

"Later contention on the opposite side has added little to 
Parton." 

To citizens of New Orleans it may be of especial interest to be 
reminded that Judge Alexander Walker, in his excellent work, "Jackson 
and New Orleans," published in 1856, freely concedes the claim of 
South Carolina. 

George Bancroft, one of the ablest and most accurate of American 
historians, delivered, on June 27, 1845, in Washington City, a "Funeral 
Oration on the Death of General Andrew Jackson," in which he said: 

"South Carolina gave a birthplace to Andrew Jackson. On its 
remote frontier, far up on the forest-clad banks of the Catawba, 
in a region where the settlers were just beginning to cluster, his 
eyes first saw the light." 

As pointed out by Mr. A. S. Salley, Jr., in the able paper pub- 
lished as an appendix to Brady's Life of Jackson, about 1820, one 
John Boykin surveyed Lancaster District, under a contract with the 
State of South Carolina, and in the same year prepared a map of the 
district from this survey. On that map Mr. Boykin, the surveyor, 
very distinctly locates "Gen'l. A. Jackson's Birth Place." This map 
was afterwards engraved for Mill's "Atlas of South Carolina," which 
was published about 1825. A section of this map of Lancaster District, 
S. C, showing Jackson's birthplace, is reproduced in fac simile here- 
with, upon the same scale as the original, i. e., two miles to the inch. 

Eugene Reilly, a surveyor and engineer of Charleston, S. C, in 
1820, delineated a map of South Carolina, which, according to Mr. Sal- 
ley, very distinctly locates "Gen'l. Jackson's Birthplace" exactly where 
Boykin and Mills located it. Amos Kendall, of Kentucky, a close, 
personal and political friend of General Jackson, who was Postmaster- 
General during Jackson's second term and a member of the so-called 
"Kitchen Cabinet," published, in 1843, two years before Jackson's 
death, cei'tain contributions toward a biography of Jackson, which 
were accompanied by a map. Both the text and map fix the spot 
of Jackson's birthplace in South Carolina. Under date of July 8, 
1827, General Jackson wrote a letter to Mr. Robert Mills, Columbia, 
S. C, which letter was published, with comments, in the New Orleans 
Times-Picayune, of Sunday, January 10, 1915. This letter affords 
cumulative and convincing evidence that the map-makers in ques- 
tion were correct in locating Jackson's birthplace in South Caro- 
lina. Robert Mills, the recipient of this letter:, was himself a South 
Carolinian and a civil or topographical engineer and a friend in youth 
of General Jackson. He did not die until March 3, 1855, nearly ten 



42 

years after Jackson himself had passed away. This article further 
shows (what can be learned from other sources) that "some time 
in the twenties of the past century, while doing civil engineering 
work in his native State, Mr. Mills drew a map of the territory in 
which Andrew Jackson was born and spent his youth. He sent a copy 
of this sketch to Gen. Jackson and received the following letter in 
reply." Now, note the contents of Jackson's letter. Among other 
things, he says: "I have received your favor of the 15th ult., accom- 
panied with a map of the district of Lancaster, within which I was 
born. * * * A view of the map, pointing to the spot that gave me 
birth, brings fresh to my memory many associations dear to my heart. 
* * * The crossing of Waxhaw Creek, within one tnile of which I 
was born, is still, however, I see, possessed by Mr. John Crawford, 
son of the owner (Robert), who lived there when I was growing up 
and at school. I lived there for many years, and from the accuracy 
ivith which this spot is marked on the map, I conclude the whole must 
be correct." 

Could anything be more explicit, positive and convincing than 
this? 

For himself, the writer does not pretend to affirm that it is infal- 
libly true that Andrew Jackson was born in South Carolina. If the 
fact, however, be not free from doubt or is not now susceptible of 
absolute demonstration, yet, as it seems to him, the least that can be 
said is that the decided preponderance of all the known evidence is in 
favor of South Carolina as the honored birthplace of the "Hero of 
New Orleans." Hence, being called upon to make choice in respect 
to a matter like that here in controversy, it is enough for him that 
General Jackson always thought, believed and many times declared 
that he was born in South Carolina, and that there is abundant evi- 
dence to show that he was right. Most of this evidence has been la- 
boriously collected by Mr. A. S. Salley, Jr., Secretary of the Historical 
Commission of South Carolina, and, for those inclined to pursue the 
subject further, the results of his careful research will be found 
printed as an appendix to Brady's delightful book, "The True Andrew 
Jackson." In addition to this, the writer has private information that 
Mr. Salley has unearthed fresh corroborative evidence to the effect 
that Jackson was a sure-enough "borderer," born on or very near the 
State line, but south rather than north of it. 

These convincing proofs will, at least, relieve the writer from the 
imputation of having committed a grave and egregious blunder, and 
he trusts will serve to satisfy Mr. Cameron, and other North Caro- 
linians who may be like-minded, that in the address at Chalmette he 
did not speak unadvisedly or at random on this point, nor seek, either 
consciously oi- inadvertently, to deprive North Carolina of any of her 
rightful distinctions, much less to give offense to her patriotic and 
high-minded people, for whom he entertains naught but the highest 
and most cordial consideration. 



43 

To all whom the subject may concern, we submit, in conclusion, 
the timely suggestion offered by Honorable W. O. Hart, the very effi- 
cient Chairman of the Entertainment Committee of the New Orleans 
Celebration, "that the four States, North Carolina, South Carolina, 
Tennessee and Kentucky, and, perhaps, Louisiana and Mississippi, 
should get together and settle this matter once for all." 



HENRY WATTERSON ON JACKSON. 



In an editorial, entitled "Twin Perils to Good Government," pub- 
lished in the Louisville Courier-Journal of Tuesday, January 19, 1915, 
Honorable Henry Watterson, the Dean of American Journalism, had 
this to say: 

The Committee of Arrangements for the customary celebra- 
tion of the Eighth of January at New Orleans did me the honor 
to ask me to deliver a centenary address upon the battlefield com- 
memorative of that event. If anything could lure me away from 
a resolution not again to obtrude myself upon a popular audience, 
or to share in any public function, it would have been the oppor- 
tunity offered by this invitation to unburthen my mind and heart 
of certain apprehensions which lie heavy upon both. I regretted 
that I had to decline it. 

Old Hickory has ever been my hero of heroes. As a child I 
sat upon his knee and was dandled in his arms. I grew to man- 
hood within the shadow, or shall I say the radiance, of the Hermi- 
tage. The Jacksonian principles came to me as a kind of patri- 
mony. 

No American has fared so ill at the hands of the professional 
historians. They have for the most part reflected the partisan bias 
of the times in which he lived, quite forgetting not only to render 
justice to his military service, but seeming often to delight in the 
effort to disfigure his personal character. There is ample testi- 
mony that in society he was not an uncouth backwoodsman, but a 
very fine gentleman, and that, after he crossed the line of middle 
life, he was no longer profane, if he ever had been, but a sincere, 
consistent Christian, serious and decorous in all things. 

Thirty years before Lincoln, he held himself firmly ready to 
do what Lincoln did. He sprang like Lincoln from the lowly and 
the poor. He was born, indeed, to conditions by comparison with 
which Lincoln's humblest state might be called prosperous, and 
in his rise to eminence and power he met and overcame obstacles 
far greater than any encountered by Lincoln. 

This is nowise to underestimate Lincoln. Touching our Rep- 
resentative System of Government, albeit the one called himself 
a Democrat, the other a Whig, they were in close agreement, nor 
did either — though Hell stood at the door! — ever yield his convic- 
tions, or surrender his manhood, or show himself afraid to do his 
duty as he saw it. 

I stand reverend and uncovered before the shrine of each and 
wonder whether the spirit that inspired them, or the lesson of 
their lives, has made any decisive impression upon contemporary 
Americans, so many of whom are carried away by novel theories 
of experimental reform, ranging from the making of woman over 
into a bad imitation of a man to abolishing the Constitution in 
order to establish virtue by Act of Congress. 



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